New Zealand won the silver medal at the Rio Games in 2016, the first Olympiad to include rugby sevens. The U.S. men’s and women’s teams were ranked second in the world in 2019 and spent a good portion of 2020 in isolation. They were able to travel to Spain this year and competed in a tournament in Los Angeles. That was no excuse for Chris Brown, the head coach of the U.S. women’s team. “And that guts me, because we played nine quarterfinals over the last year, and it’s the first one we lost.”

Source: New York Times July 31, 2021 11:03 UTC